Career Paths
by Waveforms
Summary: Ron is done with Hogwarts, but he has no idea what he wants to do for a living. The only thing he can do well is play chess. Ron-centric, oneshot.


**Author's Notes:**

This story takes place after Ron's seventh year. I try to keep in line with canon, although this story doesn't rely on canon much at all. I hope you enjoy it. Reviews are appreciated, constructive reviews are even more appreciated, but I appreciate you taking the time to read this fic even if you don't review.

Once again, enjoy!

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Ron had never been quite sure what he wanted to do after he graduated Hogwarts. He didn't seem to be suited towards any occupation. He wasn't nearly good enough a keeper to even make the reserve squad of the Chudley Cannons, he wasn't intellectual enough to do anything related to research or spell development, he didn't have the entrepreneurial drive to run a business like Hannah or George, and he wasn't a skilled enough wizard to follow Harry's path and become an Auror. For the time being he was working with George at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, but mostly for George's benefit rather than his own. He really couldn't see himself stocking shelves and working the register for the rest of his life, even if the pay was decent.

In fact, chess seemed to be the only pursuit where he really excelled, and he couldn't make a living off that, could he?

Ron was shaken out of his reverie by a voice from the back room.

"Ron, we're nearly cleaned out of spell-check parchment, could you run over to the warehouse and pick some up?" George yelled from the 'product development lab'. "I'll cover the register."

Ron finished up a transaction with a smirking teenager and went back to George. George flipped him a galleon. "I know it's almost your break, why don't you take this and treat yourself to a drink at the Leaky Cauldron while you're out?" George said, anticipating Ron's complaint about it being time for his break. Ron swiftly caught the galleon and pocketed it.

"Thanks, I could use a drink," Ron responded happily, glad to have the chance to take his mind off the dead-end his life seemed to be heading towards. He left the shop, strode quickly down Diagon Alley and into the Leaky Cauldron. However, instead of stopping there for a drink, he passed right through and into the Muggle world. There was a bar down the street, the Grey Dog, that he had heard about from Harry, who always had preferred muggle drinks over what he called, "that watered-down swill you wizards pass off as alcohol."

He walked in the door and sat down at the bar. The bartender, a balding middle-aged man who didn't seem to fit the part at all, asked shortly, "What'll it be?" Ron grabbed a wad of muggle money from his pocket and put in on the bar.

"I'll have a few of whatever this will get me. The stronger the better."

The bartender looked a little shocked but simply nodded and dove under the bar. He came up with a bottle of whiskey and poured a few shot glasses full of the stuff, then grabbed the bills quickly as if he thought Ron was going to change his mind. Ron lined up the glasses, five of them in total, in a neat little row in front of him. He contemplated them for a while and then downed them, one after the other. The alcohol burned, but it felt good. Ron immediately felt a little drunk, although he had been much more drunk many times before this. He wasn't an alcoholic by any means, but sometimes a little drink made it easier to forget the constant nagging from friends and family about doing something with his life.

Ron was just getting ready to leave when he spotted a piece of paper taped above the bar. "The Grey Dog's fifth annual Drunk As A Skunk chess tournament," it read in part.

This piqued Ron's curiosity. "Hey, barman, what's this chess tournament? Where do I sign up?"

The bartender looked a little irked at being addressed so rudely, but answered politely enough. "Basically, it's a standard five-game chess tourney, except you have to drink two beers before each game. Single elimination. Usually by the last game the blokes are too drunk to play. it usually comes down to who passes out first, because if you pass out you forfeit the game to your opponent. There's only thirty-two spots and we've already filled thirty of 'em, so if you wanna play you'd better sign up quick. Fifty pound entry fee, but the top prize is a thousand pounds and free drinks for a month. This Saturday."

"I'm in." Ron said. Chess? Beer? A thousand pounds? It was liked some perverse fantasy. He grabbed the requisite fifty pounds from his pocket and slammed it down. He knew neither Hermione and Harry would appreciate Ron blowing all this money on a _game_, but Ron was confident he could win it all. The bartender, again, took the money and turned around to write Ron's named on the sign-up list. "Name?"

"Ron Weasley."

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The weekend approached quickly. Ron wasn't nervous; this wasn't a _real_ chess tournament, after all. It would probably just be a bunch of drunkards who could barely play and just wanted a few free beers.

That hunch proved to be mostly accurate. When Ron walked into the Grey Dog, it was filled with loud blokes who had already started drinking even before the tournament had started. Ron thought this was foolish; why put yourself at a disadvantage early? He sat down on a stool and waited patiently for the pairings to be announced. It turned out that pairings were determined by just grabbing two people and telling them to play each other. The bartender Ron had spoken to earlier in the week seemed to be in charge.

Ron ended up playing a short little fat man who introduced himself as Rick. They downed their two beers quickly, shook hands, and began play. Ron felt only slightly tipsy and didn't think it effected his game any, but it didn't matter; Rick was a terrible chess player who clearly had no idea what he was doing. Rick, who was playing as white, opened by moving his king's rook's pawn one square forward, a move so bad that even the most amateur chess players didn't even consider it. It didn't take long for Ron to develop a position where he clearly had the upper hand; it didn't help that Rick kept absent-mindedly moving his pieces into positions where they could be captured. Within ten minutes the game was over. Ron hadn't lost a single piece.

Rick took the loss in stride and went over to join his buddies on the sidelines. Ron went back to the bar thinking of getting something to eat.

The rest of the games took longer to finish. Some players took forever pondering their moves. Ron wished that they were using timers, but reminded himself that most of these people would just get frustrated and belligerent if they were put under a time limit.

An hour later, all of the games had finished. Ron's next game was against a guy who didn't introduce himself. Ron thought of taking the initiative and introducing himself first, but his opponent had already started on the two beers sitting next to him. Ron shrugged inwardly and started drinking too.

The second game was hardly better than the first. Ron still wasn't very inebriated, but his opponent seemed to be struggling. Twice Ron had to correct him when he made an illegal move. The opponent did manage to take some of Ron's pieces, however, and lasted a whole twenty-five minutes before watching his king get knocked to the board. Ron offered his hand for a handshake but his opponent simply got up and staggered out the door, where he threw up violently. Ron thought that he must have been the ones who had been drinking beforehand.

By the third game Ron was feeling decidedly inebriated. His opponent, a young gentleman named Tom, looked completely sober, though, and put up a decent fight. Before the game he had told Ron of his experience in a university chess club, and showed off this experience by starting the game with an actual opening sequence, the Ruy Lopez. However, after this impressive start, he didn't seem to know that the point of the Ruy Lopez was to disorganize Ron's pawn structure and instead made inconsequential moves at the sides of the board. Ron took advantage of this ignorance swiftly, despite his drunkenness, and Tom was defeated.

The fourth game was by far the hardest one yet for Ron. He thought that if his opponent, another Rick, hadn't been completely drunk off his ass, he could very well have lost the game. Rick made some spectacular moves but made a blunder in the endgame that gave Ron a clear path to victory. After the game, Rick passed out on the table. Ron got some pats on the back for making it to the final round but was beginning to feel that no amount of money was worth being this drunk. And he still had two beers and one game of chess away from the money.

Ron sat down tiredly at the table and waited for his final opponent to get back from the toilet. A few minutes later, a bespectacled young man, perhaps Ron's age, with shoulder-length blond walked out of the bathroom. He was looking about as drunk as Ron felt. He sat down and held out his hand. "The name's Terry," he said in a slight slur.

Something clicked into place in Ron's slowed-down brain. "Terry_ Boot_? I didn't recognize you with the long hair."

"That's the one. Hey, you're one of the Weasleys, aren't you? Ron, right? I thought I recognized you but the goatee threw me off. I don't think we've ever talked. I didn't know you played chess, or we coulda played at Hogwarts."

"I don't _really_ play chess. . .not seriously. It's just a hobby. I don't think I could sit down at study openings and work out problems like the serious players," Ron said, shaking his head.

"I'm the same way. I studied chess a little at Hogwarts, there were some great books in the library, and I played a few correspondence games with some guy at Durmstrang, but I decided not to, you know, pursue it farther," Terry responded. "And now, with my job at the Ministry, I can't put much time into other things. Anyway, we should probably shut up, any of these muggles could be listening to us."

Ron looked around, startled, but only a few people were observing them and the bar was extremely noisy. He relaxed a little. "I guess we should start, then."

"I suppose," Terry said, grabbing one of the glasses of beer. "Oh god, I think I'm swearing off alcohol after today. If only I had Tony's drinking capabilities."

They both drank slowly. Ron was nervous about this game. Terry had _studied_. He was probably really good.

Ron finished his beers first. He didn't think he was any more drunk than he was during the fourth round, but he thought he was extremely close to just keeling over and passing out. He wondered idly if ten beers was enough to give a guy alcohol poisoning.

Terry struggled to finish his drink. His eyes were slightly unfocused and a strand of his hair was resting in the beer. He appeared to gather his composure for a moment, then swiftly picked up the glass and drained it. He immediately leaned to the side and threw up a stream of pure beer. After he was done retching, he sat back up, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and turned to Ron with a small grin on his face. "I think that counts, right? There's nothing in the rules about holding it down."

Ron, who was a bit sickened by the entire spectacle, didn't want to discuss it. "Ready to play?"

Terry nodded. Ron moved his King's pawn two squares forward. He had a plan.

They quickly played the first four moves of the Ruy Lopez opening. On the fifth move, however, Ron began to deviate from the time-tested moves that he (and every other chess player) used. Terry was visibly rattled. He would have to start thinking hard about the game way earlier than he anticipated; there were no by-the-book moves for positions like this.

It wasn't long before Terry's position was in complete chaos. Ron's was too, but he liked to play this way. Against a person better than himself, he figured that it was better to play to his strengths. Terry, the studious Ravenclaw, would have trouble playing a game that didn't resemble anything in a book or anything that a "real" player would come up with.

An hour passed. An hour and a half. Terry was taking a long time on his moves, but in his extreme drunkenness he was making sub-optimal plays. Ron was also very drunk; the board was swimming in front of him and he kept losing focus. However, he felt that the logical part of his brain was untouched by the alcohol. He was making calculations as fast as ever. He felt like he was playing a good game of chess.

Terry must have thought so too. After two hours and fifteen minutes, down a knight and a pawn and with Ron's queen commanding the center of the board, he knocked over his king in resignation. "I give up. Good game, mate," he said in a drunken slur before passing out on the table, disrupting the rest of the pieces.

There was a smattering of applause from the diehards. Ron was dazed and felt like passing out himself. He took the 10 hundred-pound notes, the equivalent of two months at the shop, that the bartender held out to him and walked out the door. He thought about doing something about Terry, but decided he was too drunk to be of much help. He would owl Terry later and maybe set up a few games of correspondence chess. Some _sober_ games.

Ron squinted at the bright late-afternoon sun. There was no way he would be able to apparate in his current situation, so he walked through the Leaky Cauldron and back to his flat.

"A thousand pounds for five measly games of chess," Ron said out loud as he stumbled down Diagon Alley. "I could make a living doing this."

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**More Author's Notes:**

I'm sorry if I made any errors with British currency, or with the descriptions of chess. I'm not a big chess player myself, but I felt like I knew enough to write a story about it. I hope you weren't bored by the chess-specific stuff.

This story was originally going to be a lot different, it was going to have romance and end with Ron being a chess grandmaster, but that would have resulted in a much longer story. I don't think anybody wants to read ~25,000 words of chess-based romance. I also wanted to keep things short and reasonable for my first-ever fic. :D

Anyway, now that you're all the way down here, why not leave a review?


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